There is Sadness Here
by Darkness is My Savior
Summary: What YYH fan doesn't dream about ending up in the YYH world. I tell ya, it's overrated. You all expect to get powers, or that getting strong is easy. You don't think there'll be any fear. You don't realize what you've got to lose until it's to late. REM
1. The End Begins

Dims: Ummm. Yeah. I know that I haven't updated my other stories in a while, but I finally think I have this one down, so….Here it is

* * *

BOOORED!!!!! I slumped over the armrest of the couch and blew my bangs out of my face. There was absolutely nothing to do. I was bored of all my video games and I'd seen all the movies at least twice. And there was NO WAY that I was reading one of the books for the twentieth time.

There was a knock on the door of the apartment and a notice slipped under the door. I stared at the yellow cardstock for a moment before deciding it was SOMETHING to do. The paper was still warm from the press and the letters shone as they proclaimed, "Spirit World Records now Available to the Public: Research the greatest exploits of our heroes.

Grand Opening!

I drooped. Kayani (1) would have been laughing at me for getting my hopes up, but I was just so bored! The whole thing would probably be about my dad and how he saved the world a dozen times. I glanced over my shoulder at the striped couch and gray carpet and scrambled to find my shoes. Anything was better than staying here.

Less than fifteen minutes later I was standing the middle of a chattering crowd of spirits and ogres, all eager to see first hand sources of their personal heroes. A gong rang from somewhere inside the palace. The tall, ornately carved doors opened, and the whole mob rushed inside.

I was right, of course. A whole section was dedicated to the Spirit Detectives. My sneakers squeaked on the blue tile as I passed those shelves and the crowd of squealing ferry girls crowded around them. I let my mind wander and my feet led me through the maze of rosewood shelves to a quiet corner in the back of the room. Here I found the older legends, the books of stories before my father was even born as well as scientific texts. My fingers ran over the soft leather binding of one book as I pulled it gently from the shelf. There was no accompanying box of reports and photographs, so I sat down at the table and began to read.

_Being an index of demons and a brief history of their evolution_

_By Professor Nillius Bylard_

_Introduction_

_We shall start at the beginning. The basic evolution of demons as commonly agreed upon in the scientific community. During the early stages of human evolution, portals opened with alarming frequency, trapping the humans and animals in the harsh environment. The atmosphere was deadly to many, but those who survived began to absorb the energy. Soon they began to evolve and learn to control the energy. Those who lived near volcanoes could manipulate fire or earth, those in the iciest climates controlled air and ice. Those who spent time around animals absorbed part of that DNA, gaining the ability to change between a human form and an animal form. _

_There is often confusion between Animal Demons and demonic animals. Animal Demons are intelligent and have control over their shape. They are descended from the humans that were first transported there. Demonic animals are the evolved forms of those animals that came to demon world. They have little intelligence and only one form._

_Still there are those even stranger, who through some trick of habitat or genetics could tamper with shadows, light, electricity, plants, or manipulate their bodies. As these powers were refined, new techniques were created. In Demon World, society did not evolve the way it did on earth. Though there are "civilized" demons who live in towns, do honest work, and hardly ever fight, sometimes not even possessing greater than average energy levels. The children there are brought up knowing their letters instead of their fighting techniques. Of course, this kind of thing has greatly increased since the Great War ended just ten years ago. More than 25% of demon children grow up in peace now, a 20% leap from before the war. Yet many still live in the ways of death. We wait to see what the future brings. Perhaps a second edition of this shall be necessary as new groups of demon evolve. _

_Nillius Bylard _

The book continued with a list of demon types and their powers. I read through until I reached the section on what the table of contents said should have been the Lightning Demon. The book skipped straight from the Ice maidens and why there were different from Ice Demons to Water demons and the properties of water in healing. I looked carefully at the center of the book to see the ragged remains of the pages. Someone had ripped them out of the book. Who would have done this to a priceless book, in the Spirit World Records no less! I decided to report it.

I once again made my way through the corridors of books, scrolls, videos, and documents in search of one of the librarians, the book in hand. I quickly found the front desk with the ogre George stationed there.

"Hi George," I said as I set the book down on the counter.

"Hello Mamoru (2)!" He said cheerily. "Are you enjoying the records?"

I smiled politely back at him. "Yes, I am. Thank you. But I'm afraid that someone has damaged this book," I said, pushing it towards him.

George took one look at the title and went slightly pale.

"Erm…uh, yes, the damage to this book has been recorded for a long time. It was an unfortunate thing, but the thief burned them after ripping them out and we have not been able to find another copy of the book." He was beginning to regain his color. "I'm sorry for inconvenience, Mr. Urameshi. Please accept my apologies."

I nodded, but my mind was whirring. There was something suspicious about all this. "Thank you, George." I said before turning and heading back to the corner. Maybe a book of ancient legends would help.

* * *

Bright rays of sunlight danced through my window to tickle my nose. I groaned and buried my face into my nice soft pillow. Why did the sun have to go up so damn early? I lifted a hand lazily and the curtains flew across the windows, enveloping the room in a calm shade once more. I quickly found that I couldn't go back to sleep again. Grumbling, I got up and stumbled in the half-light to the bathroom, my head spinning dizzily as I tried to remember how to work my legs.

What, I wondered, was so effing important that my brain decided it couldn't wait? My thoughts as I had tried to go sleep the night before filtered drowsily through my mind as I washed my face.

That darn book. I combed my dark hair out of my face. The book had plagued my thoughts and dreams all last night. Why had someone ripped out just that section? Why not take the whole book? Or, if his intent had been to destroy it, why didn't he destroy the whole thing?

Why did it matter? I turned my line of questioning towards myself. Maybe someone didn't like lightning demons and decided to rip out the section. Why should I care? But somehow I couldn't seem to keep it out of my mind as I pulled on a worn pair of jeans and a t-shirt, walked half asleep to the kitchen, and poured myself a bowl of my favorite cereal.

Questions were swirling around my head to the point where I wished my I could just erase every thought in my head just for some quiet when I wondered where my dad was. Today was a Sunday. He usually made a nice hot breakfast on Sundays. I looked blearily over at the calendar. Oh. It was _that_ day. January 13th.

Every year on this day, my father and his friends all had some sort of gathering in areas of Spirit World restricted even to Kayani and me, the children of the Spirit Detectives! Each year without fail I would wake up to find the apartment empty and I would not see my father until I woke up the next day. When I was little I had always wanted to go with my father, but I could never make it into the restricted sections without an ogre dragging me away. As I got older I merely became resentful of this mysterious event that took my father away and that he would not tell me about. Now it was just routine.

Now what was I going to do. Today was likely to be just as boring as yesterday, especially with Kayani on one of her little retreats. She basically sat in her room and meditated for a week. I thought about the small, snide figure of my best friend and wondered for the infinitifth time why I was friends with her. Most people thought she was just as creepy as her father. Uncle Hiei had always been…strange. Even he, who normally liked me, would not tell me about the little gathering. He seemed to grow—this is the closest word I can come to—pained whenever I had asked and I quickly learned to stay quiet.

This bit of reflection still left me with the problem of what to do. Movies, no. Books, no. Video games, hell no. That left…the library. Fate is cruel.

I slid into one of the computer terminals, and typed in lightning demons. I was determined to learn as much as I could so that maybe I could figure out why someone had destroyed that one section. This search would be slow, but it would list every book that even mentioned lightning demons.

There! I quickly downloaded the list onto one of the PDAs that were available to patrons on request and set off into the paper forest.

A few minutes later I sat in the quiet corner and began to read. The first book was a legend. A lightning demon named Taro stole a precious mirror from a water spirit. There was an epic battle and in the end, Taro was defeated. _"But Taro did not die," _it said. I read eagerly for the rest of the sentence, _"because…"_ Someone had blacked out the rest of the line, and no matter what I did, what angle I turned the book or what attempt I made to lift the ink, the rest of the sentence was illegible. The story continued that Taro was in the Spirit World prison. A quick check on the PDA told me that he had been held until 189 BC and then they had found a way of executing him and he was now dead. No way to question him. I set down the book in disgust and turned to the next one.

This book spoke of a lightning demon healer. Apparently no one had decided to censor this book because it told of a small, blond, blue-eyed girl going into the human world and healing those pure of heart until she was stabbed through the heart herself by a demon hunter. According to legend, she died in the act of healing a human girl, and the girl died shortly after due to the unhealed injuries.

The next one was a myth about the creation of the world. It was a short scroll but intricately decorated with illuminations and calligraphy. It said that lightning had created the world and had given life to all beings and so it was the lightning demons who had the most power.

The last book I had collected seemed totally random, and I wondered why it had come so close to the top of the search results since it barely mentioned them. All it said on the subject was, _"Our beloved general, a lightning demon of extraordinary power, slay the enemy general and that was the end of the Great War."_ I felt myself wonder the question every spirit in Spirit World wanted answered, "Who was our leader in the Great War?" Very few Spirits were old enough to know, and those who were, like Botan, George, Koenma, and my father, had been ordered to secrecy. So our leader remained a faceless lightning demon who had saved us from sure destruction. For many, that was enough.

I sighed, hoping that this book did not mark a decline in the quality of the sources further down the list, and went to return them to their proper shelves.

I had only one book left to return, the one on the Great War. I made my way to its shelf when I saw a small, dark haired boy searching intently through the shelves or records. I muttered an excuse me—he was standing right in front of the shelf I needed—and put the book back on the shelf. No sooner had I moved away before the small boy jumped to reach the shelf, snatched the book, and in a whirl was racing down the corridor.

"Hey, wait!" I shouted after the kid, chasing him, but when I turned the corner I had last seen him at, he was gone.

I once again jogged up to the service desk.

"Hello," said the familiar voice. "I'm glad you decided to come again, Mamoru. I hope you found something interesting."

"Yeah, I did, George," I said between pants. I was slightly winded, having jogged across a great distance. "But I think there's a thief in here." I quickly described to George what had happened. "He was small, pale, with messy black hair and," this was the strangest detail, "purple eyes."

George nodded. "Yes, I think I know who you're talking about." He surprised me by smiling. "If I am correct, he is the son of one the spirits high up. He's actually a bit older that you were. He and his mother were at your christening."

"What?" That kid _couldn't _have been older than me. He looked maybe nine or ten. "Why was he at my christening.

"Well, your father was the Spirit Detective," he said patiently, as though I had inherited my dad's slow wit as well as his looks. "It's only natural that a powerful spirit would take interest. They had hoped you and the other child would be friends, but the mother soon became ill and the boy rarely leaves her side. He comes here once and a while and we let him take whatever his mother wants him to read to her." He shook his head. "It is a shame. She was once very beautiful." He shook himself. "Mamoru, I am very gad you're concerned with the records, but if you see him again, please leave him alone. Now you go an enjoy yourself."

I left the library, slightly confused and suspicious. And most definitely frustrated. I decided to take it out on a dummy and headed over to the gym.

Little did I know then that a pair of purple eyes watched me steadily from behind a pillar, a leather bound book clutched in their hands.

* * *

Sweat trickled down y forehead as I finished the sixth mile and turned off the treadmill. The exercise had helped in completely wiping my mind of frustration. I headed home for a well deserved shower and tried not to sit up, waiting for my father to sneak back in. Soon, a favorite lullaby gently lead me to sleep.

* * *

DIMS: I hope you enjoyed it: I know that there hasn't been much action, but there won't be a lot of action for a while, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this story

(1) Kayani-a Persian name meaning royal

(2) Mamoru-Japanese name meaning to protect


	2. You've Been Warned

Dims: Wow…. That was fast.

Era: What are you talking about? You are the slowest updater ever!

Sahara: (is on fire) Yeah. What. About. ME!

Dims: eheheheheh. I'm gonna go hide now. (Runs away from the furious Sahara)

Riley: (bows) Please enjoy the second chapter of There is Sadness Here.

Roses are red, violets are blue. I don't own, please don't sue. :)

And Yume Ninja, your review reply is underneath everything else at the bottom of the page. Thanks a billion for your review!

Dedicated to KewlKayko from DeviantArt and Yume Ninja. Also Zena Silverwing who suffers through my hours of babbling about this story even though she hates YYH.

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**Requiem for the Dreamer**

Chapter 2: You've Been Warned

"_Some secrets need to be kept,_

_Some stories should never be told."_

_~Hilary Duff_

_Dangerous to Know

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_

People were fighting all around me but they didn't seem to notice me. Blood soaked the ground and saturated the air. Terror filled my heart but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't move my feet. A feeling of despair filled the air around me, soaking into my soul as I frantically searched for some means of escape. That was when I saw him.

A little boy darted between the legs of the larger figures, demons I realized. His dark head bobbed up and down and his purple eyes glinted as he cut the legs out from under some of the demons. I stared, stunned into stillness, as he cleared the battlefield and then ran into a tent, removing the messenger bag that was slung over his shoulders. A powerful voice rang from the tent as approximately half of the fighters on the field began to retreat. The faces I saw were of men, women, and even a few children. Blood spattered their cheeks and many were clutching wounds. The scent of the blood made me wretch. Healers rushed from the protection of the tents to try to heal the wounded. Several I could tell were water demons from the canteens they kept at their sides but one, a girl in dark leather, was healing it seemed through spirit energy alone, and her healing was the fastest.

I looked at the retreating fighters all around me. Some were demons, some creatures of fantasy: elves, dwarves, and a pale folk I recognized but couldn't identify. There were even ogres wielding clubs. A group of forbidding women in dark cloaks glided in front of the host of fighters and created a force field that crackled with energy, preventing the enemy group of fighters from following, trapping them in a circular area. The strange healer girl shouted something into the sky in a language I couldn't understand. Suddenly something eclipsed the red glow of the demon world sun. I looked up and then to see the silhouette of a scaly body, powerful wings, dagger like claws. With a roar, the dragon hurled the rock down on us from the heavens. Just as I was about to be crushed...

…I woke up in a cold sweat, my sheets tangled around my legs. That boy. He was the one from the library. Yesterday he had just seemed quiet, almost unfeeling. Today he seemed malicious, deadly. Frightening. I shuddered and wondered why I would dream such an awful thing.

Then there was that girl. She had seemed different from the other healers. She didn't look like a healer. Despite my dislike of stereotypes, I had long ago noticed that most healers are more delicate. Don't get me wrong, healers are very powerful, but they have more fragile features and they are often slender. This girl was powerfully built, rough features and a stocky frame. She had also seemed to have some sort of additional authority, issuing orders of some sort. I tried to remember exactly what she looked like and blinked in surprise as I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember her face. I tried to grasp the dream, pull it back, desperate for some reason to remember her face. But it was futile. The harder I pulled the faster it slipped until I only had my analysis from earlier to remember her. There was absolutely no picture left in my mind at all.

Why did it matter? It was just a dream. The smell of fresh pancakes wafted into my room and I scurried to get dressed and into the kitchen.

"Morning, Kiddo!" My dad said as I dashed into the kitchen and started buttering the pancakes already on my plate.

I mumbled something like, "Morming, Mad," through my mouthful of food. I swallowed and tried again. "How was yesterday?" I never could stop myself from trying.

"Fine," he said, like he does every year. "What did you do yesterday?"

"I went to the records room. The other day I was looking through a book about different kinds of demons, but the section on lightning demons had been torn out," I started, hoping that maybe my dad would know something. "So yesterday I went to try and found out as much as I could about lightning demons. Only when I went to put one book away, this kid with purple eyes grabbed it and disappeared. I asked George about him and he said that he and his mom had been at my christening, but that his mom got sick so we had never met." I blew my hair out of my tan face as I stuffed more pancakes into my mouth.

"Oh, you met Kouryuu (1)? I didn't know he left his mother's apartments anymore," my dad said with a bit of interest.

"Is that his name? Yeah. He was kind of creepy." I shuddered as I remembered the look on his face as he had mortally wounded the larger demons. "Who is his mother? George said she was a high ranking spirit."

"She's…well, she…she was an advisor to the general during the Great War," my father said almost hesitantly. "Her son was a message runner, even though he was very young. It was a terrible war, Moru. Children fought and died, so young. I remember fighting. Koenma had deployed us because the army was so depleted. I saw child soldiers fight to the death. Kouryuu is lucky to still be alive." He shook his head to rid it of the memories.

Something from my dream surfaced again. Kouryuu had been carrying a messenger bag in my dream. Coincidence? Or was my mind being influenced somehow by a more powerful psychic? I shook myself and concentrated on what my dad was saying. "He's always been a quiet kid. Solemn. I doubt he even remembers how to hold a civilized conversation; he's been stuck with his mom so long. It's a shame. She used to be very strong. Now she's wasting away."

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, wiping syrup off my nose. Now how had it gotten there?

There was something strange in my father's tone as he answered that made me focus again. "The doctor's say something's wrong with her heart." He snorted. I looked at him questioningly. "I've met Anrui (2)," he said quietly in answer. "There's nothing wrong with her physically. She's dying of a broken heart. Her eldest daughter died in the War and she's never recovered."

I looked down at my pancakes and suddenly I didn't have an appetite anymore.

My father broke the heavy silence. "I hear Kayani's woken up. Why don't you go hang out with her today?"

I nodded. I wanted to do something other than the library. I would do anything, _anything_ other than the library.

* * *

I pulled on my shoes and started jogging to Kayani's. Pity for the woman—Anrui, my dad had called her—and the thought of child soldiers refused to leave my head the whole way. I was panting slightly as I reached the door of her apartments. I needed to go to the gym more. I lifted a hand to knock and the door flew open. Kayani was definitely awake. Show off.

"Morning Uncle Hiei," I greeted my uncle as he drank his morning cup of coffee. He grunted at me and nodded as I made my way to Kayani's room.

Kayani painted her room herself. The walls are all black with spirals of red and silver. She said it was calming and restful. I thought it was depressing at first but came to agree as we spent hours together, ever since we were small children. Kayani and I were born only a few months apart, just after the Great War—she was older than I was—and since our fathers were friends, it was natural that we would spend time together.

The melancholy tones of a bamboo flute floated through the air mixed with the lingering scent of incense. She sat on the bed, holding an exquisitely crafted flute to her lips and playing melodies that could break your heart and yet managed to send a chill up your spine. The last note drifted from the instrument before she put it down, her face a mask of boredom.

"Morning, Moru," she said, her tone matching her expression. Kayani looks nice enough, a pointed chin—her face was shaped sort of like a strawberry—a small nose, red eyes, and long, black and white hair she keeps in high pigtails.

"Hey, Kay," I said as I lay on the rug beside her bed. "So, anything interesting on your retreat?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I still haven't been able to make it through that one set of barriers, and no one outside those walls has anything interesting to think. The only thing that came out of it was that I think someone left the protection of the shields; only they had such a strong personal shield I couldn't get to their thoughts. I couldn't even lock onto his position to get a visual."

Kayani has a very powerful ability to see things with her mind and to read other peoples thoughts. For a decade and a half now we've been trying to break through the shields that are around the restricted section.

"Oh well," I said, shrugging, "we've got all the time in the world to figure it out," I said. "Waddaya want to do today?" I asked, hoping she would have some idea.

"I heard that the Spirit World records have been opened to the public. Let's go check it out."

I internally groaned. When Kayani wanted to do something, that was what you did or you got your ass kicked and _then_ that's what you did. Someone has got to be messing around with my fate, I thought.

* * *

Soon we were walking through the huge doorway of the records room. I'd already been, so I let Kayani lead the way. She, like I, snorted and walked past the section on our parents and headed to the back of the huge room. By huge, I mean like Bigger than the biggest building and taller than the Empire States building. The ceiling high above was decorated with ancient symbols forming the borders of the seven pictures representing the 7 races: Humans, Spirits, Elves, Vampires, Dwarves, Demons, and Children of the Night. The seven legendary races that had fought together in the Great War.

I gazed up at the intricate designs. There was something that connected each picture. But what was it? I quickly realized that the figures in the paintings—whether through a glance or an extended hand—all gestured towards the design in the center. It resembled a yin yang symbol only it was created with two Chinese dragons, one black and one white, each devouring the other in a symbol of eternity. Both the dragons had a ruby for an eye and set in between them was a red rose. Its thorns were sharp, yet a small brown dragon curled around its stem to sniff its sweet fragrance.

I wandered behind Kayani, totally entranced by the beauty. In the back of my mind I hoped that she remembered the way back and prayed that I would be able to guide myself back using the ceiling if she decided to abandon me. Knowing Kayani, it was not out of the question.

"Moru! Get over here!" she called, jerking me from my thoughts.

"What?" I called to her as I jogged to catch up.

Her hand was on what appeared to be a section of the curved wall except that it had moved to reveal a pitch-black entrance.

"Cool," I whispered in awe.

"Come on," she said, tugging my wrist. "Let's go!"

She pulled me into a dark, dusty room filled with boxes. A sphere of my spirit energy illuminated the dank, dusty room. Cobwebs hung like huge collections of snowflakes in the corners. A chill came over me as I surveyed the room. Something wasn't right here. Crates were stacked haphazardly, piles scattered about the room. They were the kind of boxes that Spirit world used to collect testimony, photographs, and documents pertaining to cases or happenings. Each and every one of the boxes was labeled, **"OPERATION: BANE"**

"Whoa," I said, stunned.

"Why would someone go through all the trouble to hide these files?" Kayani whispered. "And why here? Of all the places to hide records, why in the Room of Records itself?"

"I don't know," I said as I blew dust off of one of the boxes. "Lets find out."

We quickly discovered that the boxes consisted mostly of tapes with a few sets of documents in between, so we reserved a viewing room. They were mostly empty since everyone was in the rooms towards the front watching videos of the dark tournament or the fights with Sensui.

Each room had a table, several chairs, an audio tape player, and a projector so that patrons could examine all the records. I gently set the box down on the table and Kayani and I sat to examine the contents more closely. The first thing that we pulled out was a small packet of paper. Kayani dragged her chair next to mine and began to read. That was the beginning. Neither of us were prepared for the horror those files contained.

* * *

_Operation Bane: Mission Outline_

_Operation objective: To confirm suspicions based on the Orion prophesy and act if necessary._

_Agents involved: Hiei Jaganshi, Yusuke Urameshi, Kurama Minamino, Kazuma Kuwabara._

_Subject: Riley Eli McKliney (3)_

There was a picture tacked onto the top of the first page. The girl was pretty. That was the first thought that came into Mamoru's head. Red brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. Her brown eyes seemed to be smiling all by themselves without the help of the broad grin that stretched from ear to ear. Her face was at an angle, as though she was interacting with someone else. A candid photo. She was short, slightly pudgy, but also muscular in some way. She seemed cute and innocent, staring at the world through her glasses. Why would she be of any interest to Spirit World?

_Age: 11_

_Date of birth: 1/13/1995_

_Mother: Sarah McKliney_

_Father: Connor McKliney_

_Brother: Ian McKliney_

_Other info: She enjoys rock music, is good in school. Healthy but not particularly strong._

_Mission Guidelines: Riley is unpredictable. She clings, so do not let her get attached. If she believes you to be imaginary, allow her to do so. DO NOT, under any circumstances allow her to know why you are there. DO NOT interfere with any psychic development. DO NOT get attached_

Mamoru frowned. Why would she believe the spirit detectives imaginary? Why were they there? And there was something suspicious about how it specifically ordered them not to get attached.

_Mission Info: America, suburb._

_Special info: Subject exists in dimension 781156025. A special portal will be opened using the gem of__**kaisetsu**_.(4)

He stared, dumbfounded at that piece of information. Spirit World, interfering with other dimensions?

The file ended there. Mindlessly, Mamoru reached for the first tape. If he had bothered to read the small note that had been on the top of the tapes, but which now lay forgotten in the dusty room, he might not have touched the tapes. He might have left them alone, convinced Kayani that they shouldn't meddle. But fate has other plans.

As for that lonely peace of paper? It sat, motionless on the floor stating simply in a messy script: "This story does not have a happy ending."

* * *

Not far away, in the depths of spirit world's most carefully guarded rooms, Kouryuu knelt near a window, hidden in the shadows cast by the sharp angle of the sun.

"Hello, Mother."

A figure sat on the window seat, bathed in sunlight. She stared emotionlessly out the window to the gardens below.

"Hi, Shaks(5)"

* * *

Dims: (sneaks back on) I finally lost her

Shahara: Gotcha!

Dims: Yikes! (runs away)

Kouryuu: -.-'''''

Kayani: Please review!

(1) Kouryuu means rain dragon.

(2) Anrui means silent tears

(3) No one is allowed to yell at me. I DID NOT misspell McKinley. This is just the name that popped into my head for Riley.

(4)Kaisetsu means opening. And the number is totally random.

(5)Shaks is pronounced like shocks, not shacks.

Translations according to .

Okay, we are having a change Title poll! Several existing options are (there are a lot of them):

Lightning always strikes twice (I like this, but I was planning it on saving it for something else)

The Chronicles of Riley McKliney (yuck!)

Time to Shine (ehhh….not so enthusiastic on this one)

The Road Less Traveled (totally random just now)

The Legacy of Riley

A Hero's Legacy

A Hero's path

The Path of the Hero

What makes a Hero?

Wilted Rose

Orion Prophecy

Submit your own!

Please help by voting! Reviews are nice too.

Yume Ninja: Thanks sooooo much for your support. I hope you enjoy the story. You are awesome! Peace out! Dims

~Bye~


	3. Innocence

**Requiem for the Dreamer**

**Chapter 3: Innocence**

_"Last day of the rest of my life  
_

_I wish I would've known  
_

_Cause I didn't kiss my mama goodbye."_

_P.O.D_

_Youth of the Nation_

_

* * *

_

The girl was sleeping peacefully. Riley McKliney, the subject of the Orion prophecy, lay innocently in her bed, drooling slightly, her face twitching in troubled sleep.

The room was small and neat with a sloping ceiling; light colored hardwood floors, and mostly white furniture. A teddy bear was squished beneath her head, her glasses sat crookedly on her face where they had been when she'd fallen asleep.

Hiei wondered how such an innocent looking girl could be part of such a dark looking prophecy.

Her eyes suddenly snapped open wide and she stared at him. Had Hiei had a normal idea of human convention, he would have realized just how stalkerish he looked, leaning over a young girl as she slept at 3 o'clock in the morning.

A rock was suddenly flung through his incorporeal head, right through his jagan eye. Another rock went through his heart. He became solid enough to catch the third one, just as it was about to go through his nose.

Her eyes were wide with terror as he leaned in, glaring slightly at her and whispered, "Shhh."

She closed her eyes tightly and then opened them again. She started hyperventilating when she saw he was still there.

He quietly slipped into her mind, curious as to what she was thinking.

"_Dream, dream, dream! This is all some God-awful dream. This can't be real!"_

_Her mind was dark, a vast blackness with a single light coming from a bare bulb high, high above. A ghostly figure of Riley passed under the light as she thought and disappeared._

_Another voice sounded from the back of her mind, this one very much like the little girl sitting in front of him, but a bit deeper and more serious with a bit of depressed irony. The phantom under the light looked much like Riley as well, but in a bandana and carrying a wooden pole, a scowl marring what would be innocent features._

"_Idiot," it said, "that would be way too cliché. Now open your eyes and face the music."_

"_Or the angry looking deadly anime character." This voice was older and gentler, like a mediator of the two. This third shade was taller, with long dark hair and kind, knowing eyes._

"_Easy for you to say," Riley said, flickering agitatedly in the dusty light. "You don't exist, so if he decides to kill me, I'm the only one who ends up hurt." She sounded almost hysterical at this point._

_A small, echoing voice called quietly over the vastness of her dark consciousness, and this time there was no image, just a wave of power that seemed to come everywhere at once. It was a comforting voice, and it calmed Riley down. "Remember, Riley. As long as we are here, he cannot hurt you. We are all here to protect you."_

_She relaxed somewhat._

In the real world she opened her eyes to stare boldly at Hiei, a confidence in her gaze that had not been there before. He made mental note to report that she had obvious signs of multiple personality disorder or possible possession by at least three other spirits besides the one mentioned in the prophecy.

"What are you doing here?" she said coldly, adjusting her glasses so she could glare at him over the top. He remained silence, and the laser stare intensified. "I said," she snapped, "what are you doing here?"

He shrugged. If he acted like he didn't know, she would stop pestering him.

She blinked and her gaze softened. "Well, whatever you're doing, you might as well have a place to sleep. She rolled out of bed and pulled out a mat, pillow and blanket, throwing them neatly to the ground. "There, you can sleep there."

He merely nodded at her.

It was a long time before her breathing became slow and he felt safe turning on his communicator and making his first of many reports to Koenma.

* * *

She wasn't that surprised to still see him in the morning. While she had been asleep, the other three had been working on preparing and fortifying her mind against the trauma of insanity. Of course, since they were busy doing that during the three hours of sleep she had gotten since the terrifying encounter, they had not been able to filter her dreams. She was groggy and her eyes were wide with exhaustion rather than fear.

Hiei stared at her from the corner, not saying a word as she got up and went across the hall. Her eye twitched slightly. It wasn't long before she reappeared in the doorway, a dead look in her eyes. Her nightgown was pink and had a picture of a cartoon mouse on it, glaring at a cup of coffee. It said, "Warning, not a morning person," on it, and this sentiment was proved as she pointed through the doorway and grunted something that sounded vaguely like, "Out," before walking to the closet and picking out clothes.

He stood and went out the window, which she immediately covered with the curtains. It didn't do her much good, since, in his spiritual state he could see through most matter if he chose, but he did give some privacy as he looked around her back yard.

Unlike most human girls, Riley McKliney dressed herself rather quickly. It was less than five minutes later when she reappeared in her living room, dressed in a pair of jeans that were too small for her and a shirt that was too big. He was almost surprised that her socks matched. Her shoes had holes in them. She sat down at the dining room table with a bagel and cream cheese and began to eat.

At 7:30 she ran out the door and down the street until she reached the corner, where she slowed to catch her breath, tackling the three and a half blocks to her school at a brisk pace.

Hiei followed her, as he had been instructed, and watched her go through the ordinary motions of an extraordinarily bright sixth grader. She talked with friends, she read through lunch, and she listened and participated in class. Her mind was filled with thoughts of homework and projects. There was only one thing that could break her concentration.

Ailin Tristan Sullivan. She had short messy black hair and blue eyes that peered out from behind dark thick-rimmed glasses. She wore a white button up shirt and tie as well as a black skirt, white knee high socks and black rubber soled shoes, imitating the uniform of the anime characters she so adored.

She was the center of Riley's world. For a girl so intelligent, Riley was strange in that she had very few friends. The three people he knew she considered friends from listening to the quiet whisper of her thoughts were Ailin, Alyssa Smolyernov, and Luis Garcia, and Ailin's importance in Riley's mind shone like a star, leaving the other two to glimmer like bits of broken glass in a sunset.

Riley spent every moment she had at school talking to Ailin and doing everything she could to make the other girl laugh. Kurama gave him a nod once as the two girls passed, and then followed Ailin to her science class while Riley headed to History. Other than that, he had no contact with his teammate. They were on a mission, after all. This was no time to get distracted.

School was over soon, and Riley walked Ailin home.

"See you tomorrow!" she called as the older girl shut the front door behind her. She then turned around and started home.

_Hey, floaty man!_ she called up to him, startling him a bit. It seemed she had already begun to develop some form of telepathy. Or perhaps it was because he had appeared to her that she was able to talk to him. Whatever it was, he grunted noncommittally to let her know to proceed.

_Hi_ she said, a goofy smile on her face. He mentally sighed in annoyance. This was going to be a long assignment.

Little did he know just how long that assignment was going to be.

* * *

**Two Years Later**

Riley groaned and smacked the alarm clock as it beeped at the ungodly hour of half past five in the morning. She rolled out of bed, hitting the floor with a thump and a wince as she rolled a bit to far.

_Morning Hiei, Yusuke,_ she muttered in her head as she stood shakily. The two floating spirits could be annoying, but she loved them anyway. She tended to get pretty attached to people after spending two years almost 24/7 with them. And her sisters kept them in check.

Rubbing her head, she made sure the shield was firmly around the room and her necklace was in place before she began to get dressed.

She stumbled out of the room with her long reddish hair in a simple, rushed ponytail. She wore a pair of faded jeans that had holes at the knees and a shirt that had a chibi vampire on it that said, "Bite Me!" She had a necklace of a die that had been cut in half around her neck and her two leather studded wristbands on. Her black sneakers, now without holes, were tied securely. She had grown to reach the height of five feet tall. According to her doctor, that was as tall as she was ever going to get. She brushed her teeth in the mirror, checking her mental barriers for any cracks. She did not want Hiei getting into her mind, or worse, Yusuke. That guy would blackmail her if he even caught a glimpse of what she was thinking. She slung her backpack over her shoulder and snapped off a banana from the bunch as she dashed out the door, around the corner and down the street to school.

Ailin met her outside the doors to school. They were both early for once. Ailin had dark black eyeliner and lipstick on and was dressed entirely in black. She wore a black button up shirt that she left untucked and jeans with a black belt studded with silver bits. The only things not black were her shoes, and she was planning on covering those in black electric tape soon. She had styled her hair into the classic emo cut, bangs covering her eyes. She had small hoop earring in each of her ears. Her fingerless gloves accented her long, black nails as she inspected them in the cold winter sunlight. It had not yet begun to snow for the season, but the air was becoming crisp and chilly to the point where Riley actually wore shoes when she went out for the paper on Sundays, though she still wore just a pair of shorts and a tank top.

"Yo," Riley greeted, giving a tired two-fingered salute, here eyes heavy and dark from lack of sleep. She looked like a raccoon from the dark circles and bags under her eyes. That's what having chronic insomnia from the time you were a toddler does to you.

"Hey," Ailin returned, raising a hand for a high-five.

Ailin leaned against the brick wall of the school building and Riley sat down next to her, her back pressed to the cold, hard stone, and they watched the rest of their classmates chat. Riley gnawed on a stick of pocky.

"Write anything last night?" Ailin asked. They were both aspiring authors, particularly in fan fiction.

"Yeah," Riley said past the candy between her lips. "I got out another chapter in Shadow of Death," referring to her newest Yu Yu Hakusho fic, a story where the main character, a boy named Garan, had help the tantei solve various mysteries and fight enemies in order to save his sister. "You?"

"I cranked out a poem and the first few paragraphs of a Death Note Story. Are you interested in being my beta?"

Riley raised her eyebrows at the other girl. "Of course I'm interested. I owe you big time for beta-ing Lightning Always Strikes Twice," she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. And to them, it was. The question was merely a formality between the two close friends.

"What about your floaty people?" Ailin asked. It was a routine question.

"Hiei's as quiet as ever," Riley began. "Yusuke's obnoxious but nice. Era keeps telling me I'm a fool but I know she cares." She turned to the girl to her left, invisible to most, and said, "Don't you?" Era grunted and stared at the ground. "Arrianna's her usual calm self, making sure we don't blow up the world." A soft peal of laughter, inaudible to everyone but Riley, cut through the air as Arrianna laughed.

"How's Riley doing," Kurama asked Hiei quietly. They rarely had time to speak, as busy as they were taking care of their charges.

"Fine," Hiei said shortly. "Her shielding powers are getting stronger by the day as well as her telepathic communications skills are improving."

"She pulled those two out of her own mind, didn't she?" Kurama said, referring to the invisible girls floating around Riley.

Hiei nodded. "What about your charge?" He asked.

"She is getting visions," Kurama reported. She is getting premonitions of a battle between great forces. Wounds that she received heal unusually quickly. I think we have the right pair."

Hiei scoffed. "We would have wasted two years of our time if we didn't have the right ones," he said.

Kurama hummed noncommittally.

Yusuke snored.

The bell rang and the two—no, four—girls stood and filed into the school for another day of learning excitement.

"And the answer is, Ms. McKliney?" Mrs. Balstein asked impatiently. Riley never did her geometry homework, and so when she was asked to explain a problem in class, which was a fortunately rare occurrence, she always had to work it out on the spot, which was not particularly easy with Mrs. B nagging at you from the back of the room.

"The answer is that the triangles are congruent due to the SAS method," Riley said, stepping back from the board to survey her handiwork. The proof had taken about 18 steps.

"Correct," Mrs. Balstein said, pursing her lips as Riley made her way back through the crowded rows of desks to her seat next to Ailin, who gave her a high-five as she sat down. "Now," the teacher continued, "Alexis would you please put up problem thirteen?"

When it was finally time for lunch, the two girls walked calmly through the center of a throng of people, sat in a quiet corner of the cafeteria, and when they were forced outside for recess, they sat on top of the dumpster and wrote.

"Hey, Lin, would you take a look at this?" Riley said, passing her notebook over to the other.

"Sure." Ailin took the notebook and began to scan the page.

It was a poem.

_The stars up in the cold black sky_

_Twinkling in folly_

_Their joyous light will someday die._

_Leaving melancholy._

"Nice," Ailin said, handing the notebook back to Riley.

"Thanks," Riley said. They were silent for the rest of the lunch hour.

Finally school was over! Riley met Ailin at her locker and waited while the other girl packed up her books. Riley had home copies of the texts, so it didn't take her nearly as long to pack.

"Is that a new picture?" she said, pointing to the pencil sketch taped to one corner of her locker door.

Ailin looked up. "Yeah."

Riley moved closer to get a better look. It looked like trees, only twisted into various forms. It seemed that there were two distinct, groupings that were facing each other. On one side there was a dragon and what looked like an army of mice. On the other side was another dragon, but this one looked cruel and evil. By its side was a growling dog.

"Whoa. Ailin, this is great! Where did you come up with the idea for this?"

Ailin stood, slung her bag over her shoulder, and closed her locker door.

"I was staring at the trees in my back yard without my glasses a couple of weeks ago. I started seeing pictures. At first it was on dragon. The dog appeared next, then the other dragon, and finally the mice. It was so cool I decided to put it on paper."

"Nice," Riley said, nodding.

They headed off to Ailin's house, Era and Arrianna floating right behind.

"It's going to happen tonight, right?" Yusuke said, floating directly above the small girl.

"Yes," Kurama confirmed.

As the girls reached the corner, Era turned around and glared up at them.

Operation Bane, part two, was to commence in T minus six hours.

Riley didn't know. Of all the gifts she had been given, she was not clairvoyant. Only Ailin had even an inkling of what was going to happen, but she didn't even think she had any psychic powers at all. The point is that no one can blame the two girls for doing their homework, washing up, and going to bed as normal without a care in the world.

It was a clear night. The moon shone full and bright among the stars. While the heavens were peaceful that night, the happenings on the ground were the exact opposite.

"There's no way we're letting you take her," Era said, sliding into a fighting position, her pole at the ready.

"No," Arrianna agreed, her eyes glowing black and a dark aura flaring out from her body. Riley twisted and turned in a nightmare as her two sisters prepared to fight for her.

"Look," Yusuke said, "we don't have a choice. Koenma thinks that Riley could be important to our world. He wouldn't send us all this way if it weren't important."

Era just growled, bearing her teeth at the two boys. She knew it was hopeless. The two were much stronger than she or Arrianna. But that didn't mean she wouldn't try.

A purple glow surrounded Riley and she calmed slightly. A wave of energy swept through her mind, clearing it of the terrible monsters that she created and sending her into a dreamless sleep. _Sleep_ said the quiet voice from the back of her mind.

_Okay, Shaks_ she said to her guardian demon and her mind fell quiet.

Hiei quickly dealt with the two girls, binding them with a curse. "Let's go," he muttered to Yusuke. Yusuke nodded and floated down the house where the girl now slept peacefully, gently picking her up and grabbing some of her things as well. Then they stepped through the portal and were gone.

After several moments, the paralyzed spirits vanished, shifting between dimensions to follow their master.

Several blocks away, Kurama picked Ailin up in her gothic lace nightgown, carefully taking her glasses and I-pod, something she considered a necessity. The portal closed quietly behind him.

In the morning, an amber alert would be put out. By the end of the month, almost everyone had given up hope that the girls would ever be found. When a year had passed, a memorial service had been given. Alyssa and Luis stood next to each other by the empty graves of their two best friends. Luis put an arm around Alyssa's shoulder and she leaned against him, crying softly. Riley would always feel guilty about the pain she had put them through when she was most definitely alive. She sometimes wished she wasn't, though.

* * *

The tape whined and popped out from the VCR. Mamoru and Kayani looked at each other, and then Kayani reached for the next tape in the box.

* * *

In the depths of the Spirit World palace, there is a room that no one now dares to enter. It is small, and its walls were once white. But, for longer than anyone could remember, they had been stained with the bloody warning, dripping down like tears from floor to ceiling.

**THERE IS SADNESS HERE

* * *

**

DIMS: Hey All! In a slow year for updates, I will try to create a tradition of updating something on New Years Eve, just like last year (2008/2009) with chapter ten of DA.

DIMS (again): I've decided after repeating the debate with my beta over and over again to keep the title, and also, because this is an epic fic that will likely be very, very long, I have decided to subdivide it into sections or Requiems. This one is Requiem for the Dreamer

Still DIMS: This chapter was written mostly in a period between 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM one night when my awesome beta stayed over. We were working on our laptops, I wrote a few paragraphs of this, had her look at it and then wrote the rest. It's a hell of a lot better than the previous draft. I hope you like! Oh, and this chapter is very vague on purpose, so don't complain. I think I know what I'm doing. Maybe...

DIMS Once again: Also, I wrote the poem, so pardon me if it sucks.

DIMS OF THE FUTURE: Just letting y'all know that I have completed a minor update of this chapter as of 7 July 2010.

Please please please review!


	4. Punishment

**Requiem for the Dreamer**

**Chapter Four: Punishment**

_"You poor sweet thing_

_Dry your eyes and testify_

_You know you live to break me_

_Don't deny, sweet sacrifice."_

_~Evanescence,_

_Sweet Sacrifice_

* * *

I always knew I was insane, ever since I'd woken up to a delusion of Hiei leaning over my bed. I swear, it was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me. Not only was there a scary looking person standing over me as I slept, and not only did I know this person could kill me in about a second if he wanted to, but I had just suddenly and shockingly lost my grip on reality.

I think the worst part of being insane was not being able to trust my own mind. The fear from not knowing if I was making a decision based on reality or fantasy always haunted me. My mind was my last sanctuary. Having it taken away from me was earth shattering. Still, I managed to recover, to reinforce. I was strong enough to handle it when Yusuke appeared. It wasn't so different. I just had two imaginary floating people following me wherever I went instead of one. I even used my insanity to my advantage, creating three additional people: my sisters, Era and Arrianna, and the spirit of my necklace, Shakaku(1). Through these three spirits, I was able to gain some semblance of control over the otherwise disabling delusions. I couldn't make Yusuke or Hiei go away, so I treated them as though they were real people, and through my acceptance of them, I was able to keep them from interfering too greatly with my daily life. That helped.

But no matter how strong my coping mechanisms became over three years of surviving with my condition, nothing could have prepared me for the day I truly and utterly lost my mind.

It was warm. That was the first thing that I noticed in my groggy state, just barely on the horizon of consciousness. It was a blissful thing. My brain wasn't awake enough to start bombarding me with stressors and my body was still relaxed enough that it hadn't started throwing it's usual complaints at me. I knew in a few minutes it would start yelling at me that my arm was numb from sleeping on it wrong and that my shoulder hurt from being bent under my body all night and that it was too cold, but I wanted to enjoy the last few seconds of comfort before I was thrust back into wakefulness.

I'd been dreaming. What had I dreamed about? Hmm…. I mentally bit my lip. It had been a bad dream. I got the vague image of different colored glows flaring in some sort of dark fog, clashing violently in the distance. I had been scared for some reason, but then Shaks had come and guided me into a deeper sleep. Wait, if I'd gone further into sleep, that would have to have been a while ago, probably last night, and I shouldn't have remembered it. I shrugged. Maybe Shakaku coming to me had been just a part of the dream.

_Maybe_, I thought hopefully,_ it was _all_ a dream, Shaks included._

As these thoughts began the process of booting up my brain, I slowly became aware of my surroundings and frowned. My blankets didn't feel as heavy as they usually did, and I thought that I must have only one pillow under my head instead of my usual two. That wouldn't have been so odd, since I was known to kick things off my bed in the middle of the night, only there was something else that was nagging just on the fringe of my awareness, begging to be discovered.

What was it? I felt as though something was laying a trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow. I went back to the beginning of the train of thought, trying to figure out where the path was supposed to lead. Blankets, pillows….

Then it hit me like a freight train full of bricks going down an eighty-nine degree incline.

I was lying on my back.

My eyes shot open and I screamed.

* * *

**Mamoru's Time: Present Day**

Koenma momentarily paused in his work, setting the stamp down slowly and flexing his fingers carefully, wincing and the stiffness. He leaned forward onto the desk and sighed. January 13th had come and gone without incident, thank God. It was like this every year on those few dates when he'd done something so incredibly hurtful and stupid that he was cursed to forever live in fear. He never knew if something would snap and he would be dead before he knew it like someone a few feet next to a nuclear bomb. For now, he could breath easy for a few months until the next day when the Universe's number came up again on the cosmic calendar.

This was his punishment. He would spend the rest of eternity living in fear. It was like living in the shadow of an active volcano, only he wouldn't have even a hope of escape if it ever erupted.

He didn't resist this punishment, only wished he'd been a little wiser. If he just hadn't been so blind, if he'd looked before he'd leapt, none of this would have happened. Nobody'd had to die.

* * *

**Riley's Time: 2008**

I screamed and screamed, so loud I though my eardrums would tear and bleed. I desperately tried to shut out what I had seen, but the terrifying image just wouldn't fade. It was etched behind my eyes as I rocked back and forth, screaming.

I heard someone shouting something as though from far away, barely carrying over my screaming.

Suddenly, there was a huge, strangling pressure on my mind, a cold energy I was keenly aware of as it tried to break into my mind. With a panicked wave of strength, I somehow pushed the alien presence away with all the force I could muster.

"_ERA! ARI!" _ I ran around inside my head, searching the darkness frantically, my sobs reverberating in the empty space. _"Help me!"_

Silence.

"_ERA? ARI?"_ I was conscious of running footsteps and panicked voices in the outside world.

Then, all that existed was a soft golden light. All I saw, all I heard, all I smelled was the bright light, far in the distance.

I don't know if I hoped my sisters were there or if it was the falsely comforting aura that made me run towards the sunshine light in my head, but I found my feet moving beneath me, pounding on the black nonexistent surface that I stood upon. There was a warmth that somehow numbed me to my terror as I got closer to the glowing mass.

Maybe that was why I went to it. The worst part about being insane was the fear. I'd known, in that one instant that I had opened my eyes, that I hadn't even a shred of reality to hold onto. I'd known that I was insane the moment I'd seen Yusuke Urameshi leaning over me, a solid entity and a high, unfamiliar ceiling above him.

I reached the glowing shape and stretched out my hand to touch it. I knew no more.

**Five Minutes Earlier**

Yusuke leaned over the bed, watching Riley breath slowly in an out. He hadn't left her side in the nearly eighteen hours she and Ailin had been here, asleep. Their hibernation had something to do with their bodies adjusting to the new dimension and the excess of spirit energy. In the world they had grown up in, there was almost no spirit energy at all. Only Riley had any real exposure to it, but that was minimal compared to what her body would face in this realm. For a while they hadn't been sure she'd survive.

She shifted slightly and her breathing changed.

"She's waking up," Hiei observed in a monotone from the corner.

"Good," Yusuke said, not looking away from her innocent face. He wouldn't have the guilt of murder to go along with what he had done. Under normal circumstance, he would never have done something so…cruel. He'd taken an innocent young girl away from her family, away from her friends, from everything she'd ever known and thrown her into a world that, according to everything she'd been taught, didn't exist. He'd deceived her for all those years, watching her, looking for signs she was the one, and waiting for the signal to make the grab. Getting to know her. Getting attached, though he'd been told explicitly not to.

She shifted again and groaned. He leaned in intently, plastering a warm smile on his face to try to cover his unease. No matter how sick he felt, his job was to help Riley adjust to the new world. He would not let his emotions prevent him from keeping Riley as calm and comfortable as possible.

Her eyes fluttered opened. For an instant, her expression was innocent, wide-eyed incomprehension. Her lower lip trembled and her entire body shook for just a moment before she emitted a terrible scream. Her body began to thrash and writhe, her eyes tightly closed.

Yusuke quickly backed away, shouting, "What the hell is happening to her?" all the while thinking how he'd definitely failed his goal of keeping her calm.

Hiei appeared at the side of her bed in a flash, closing his eyes and preparing to enter her mind. Yusuke was watching anxiously when Hiei was forcefully lifted off the ground and flung across the room into the tiled walls. After a moment of dumbstruck hesitation, he ran to the newly made crater, feet pounding on the floor as fast as his heart in his chest. He dug through the rubble frantically, finally finding Hiei in a small cave of sorts under the debris. The small man held his head and did not seem to be aware of the world around him, but was rather consumed by something within his mind.

"Hiei!" Yusuke bellowed, relieved that Hiei appeared to be okay.

Hiei looked up at him, though the dull look in his eyes told Yusuke he wasn't all there. His voice was monotone as he said, "The barrier around her mind is one hundred times stronger than it ever was before. I've never seen anything like it in a human."

"What do you mean," Yusuke asked, glancing up at where Riley lay, suddenly still. An ominous weight settled in the pit of his stomach. Something was very, very wrong here. Very wrong.

"I mean that kind of barrier requires more energy than her body could possibly hold and several centuries of training." Hiei shook his head and seemed to be coming back to himself but made no move to stand. Neither of them noticed, but Hiei was trembling very slightly.

Yusuke was about to ask just how that was possible when a sound like silverware falling to the ground met their ears. The cackle was at one beautiful and horrible, and it was a sound they'd never heard from Riley before. They'd also never seen her glowing with a sphere of yellow light or hovering several inches off the ground. And, if Yusuke wasn't mistaken, Riley's eyes weren't usually gold.

Yusuke felt the building of power; he could see the particles of energy flowing to the hand that she loosely gestured towards them. It was obvious she was about to attack with a devastating amount of energy, yet Yusuke found himself completely frozen, as though his body had been cut off from his brain. The energy around Riley snapped and crackled like electricity, taking a more definite shape as she prepared to obliterate them.

For the first time in his life, Yusuke began to pray.

* * *

**Present Day**

Mamoru couldn't understand what the screen was showing him. It just wouldn't compute. Every time he ran the scenario through his mind, all he got was an error message.

His father was apparently paralyzed and he was about to get attacked by a girl who had moments before seemed as innocent as a kitten. But something didn't add up. Yusuke and Hiei were still alive so…

What happened to Riley?

He didn't want to think about the answer.

Yusuke Urameshi carried a small bundle of roses in his arms as he walked among the graves of Spirit World's dead. Many good men who had died during the war were buried here, and it was here that he would some day be buried alongside Keiko, his late wife.

When it had become clear that the war in demon world could easily take his life, Yusuke had proposed to and then married Keiko, so that in case he never came back, she could still call herself his wife and claim whatever benefits spirit world would pay upon his death. They had a child, Mamoru. Yet as the years passed, Keiko had aged while her husband and son had remained youthful. After she died, Yusuke had her buried in Spirit World and came to live there himself with his son. He still came to visit Keiko's grave every year on their anniversary, and every time, the stones rising out of the ground reminded him of the war that had claimed so many of his comrades.

The war had been a terrible time. They had been forced to battle horde upon horde of demons and foul creatures that had not been seen outside their dark holes for centuries. Spirit World had called together all the great races, humans, spirits, elves, vampires, dwarves, demons, and Children of the Night(2), to fight to prevent the destruction of the three worlds.

To anyone familiar with his history, this would seem like just more of the same. But Damien was like no other foe he had faced. He was cunning and charismatic. He had a whole army of highly trained warriors on his side, and he knew better than to engage in direct combat. Normally Yusuke would have considered it cowardly, but as the months had begun to pass, the young demon had gained Yusuke's respect. While he carefully avoided the Spirit Detectives, Damien fought in every battle. He was fast and strong and merciless. If it hadn't been for the general, not a single soldier would have survived.

He remembered the final battle as though it had been yesterday. The two generals had fought their way through the masses towards the center of the battlefield. Once they met, it was as though the rest of the battle had frozen. The only sounds were those of their fight as they slashed and parried. And then…

Damien had gone down. He had smiled, chuckling as blood had run down his chin, and died. Yusuke shivered. The gleam in Damien's eye, the mocking undertone in his laugh, chilled Yusuke to the bone. He quickly suppressed the memory and skipped on.

That was the end of the war. It had been the bloodiest war in the history of the three worlds. Countless child soldiers had fallen at the hands of the enemy. He clearly remembered each division of the army. The demons of every type and talent had come to their aid in every branch. They had been the backbone of the army. They fought ferociously, healed the wounded, and gathered intelligence from every corner of demon world.

There were the dwarves, smaller even than Hiei, who had fought with hammers and axes. They had kept the weapons and armor sharp. The elves were the archers and the spell weavers. Yusuke still remembered their strange beauty that was alluring and dangerous at the same time.

He shuddered as he remembered the vampires. They also held an unreal beauty, but the danger was obvious in their features. They had skin the color and temperature of ice. Their eyes always seemed to be watching you and their grins seemed to be all teeth. They had been kind enough, and the general had liked them, but…He shuddered again.

The Spirit section had consisted of a large group of ogres and some of the more fearless ferry girls. He smiled sadly as he remembered Botan's squad flying over head, dropping stones on the enemy camp by night.

Then there had been the Children of Night. Like the vampires, they were pale and beautiful, but when you first met one of them, you had no way of knowing that. The Children of Night were a reclusive group of beings that had been alive since the beginning of time itself. They lived in the isolated places of the three worlds, primarily demon world, and the world of light and darkness was their dominion. Life and death were at their command. They killed mercilessly, healed miraculously, and rarely came into the worlds of other beings. They lived in darkness and dressed themselves in black that covered every inch of their skin. Once removed, this revealed each and every one of the diminutive figures identical. They all had hair like starlight and eyes the sliver of a blade in the moonlight. Only very small differences allowed one to tell between the genders; with a bit of practice, Yusuke had been able to identify individuals. They fought with deadly precision and the general often fought with their platoon.

There had been dragons too, though only those who had fought in the war knew it. The dragons lived in a small pocket of time and space, separated from the rest of existence. Stories of the dragons were part of that which was forbidden to speak of after the war. They were barely hinted at in the painting in the great library, yet without them, Yusuke didn't think the war would have been won.

He paused in his reminiscence to lay a rose on Keiko's grave, standing in silent reflection for a moment before moving on. He walked awhile without thinking much at all until he reached the shady patch of ground underneath the willow tree. There, he continued his thought.

The smallest group in the army had been the humans, yet they had also been the most spirited. Of all the races, theirs was the strongest never say never attitude, the greatest will to go on. In the entire army, that small band of humans had the most valor, the most honor, and the most strength. There had been a total of four in the entire army: Yusuke, Kuwabara, who was now long dead, and the two girls, Riley and Ailin.

He placed the second rose at the base of the tree, and bowed his head in mourning for the two bright souls long gone.

* * *

**2008**

Slowly I began to surface. It was like swimming at night and coming up from the bottom of a pond, heading for the moon.

_Riley, Riley! You have to wake up!_ I heard Shaks calling me. His voice was muffled as it echoed through the water.

_Shaks? Where are you! _I mumbled, unable to form the words properly, even in my own mind.

_Riley, you need to wake up! _ was all he would say in reply.

_Okay_ I sighed. Shaks was always right. I'd better do what he said.

I slowly became aware of my vision. That was weird. My eyes were open. And I was standing up. Suddenly, I realized where I was. I was stunned, but the thing that shocked me more—and kept me out of another panic attack—was the energy flowing through me. It was like being on fire, only instead of hurting, I felt better than I ever had in my whole life. It was as if something that had been missing my entire life was finally there. I felt whole. But I couldn't dwell on the new sensation. I realized that my body was no longer my own. It was as though I was watching something through someone else's eyes; I could see everything but I couldn't move. I could feel that glowing gold aura clouding the upper portion of my mind, keeping me down and controlling my body.

"Riley! Don't!" a familiar voice rang out across the room, and I realized for the first time what was going on beyond my body. Whatever that yellow thing was, it was trying to kill Yusuke and Hiei using my body.

I tried to push my way back in control, but the presence was too strong. I pushed and pushed but no matter what I did, the aura stayed firmly in place. There was a cackling sound, something like breaking china. That was the last straw. _No one_ was taking over _my_ body. A silver energy built up around my consciousness as I rammed upwards one last time, just as the thing was about to fire.

All of spirit world was in a panic. One minute it had been business as usual, the next a wave of raw energy was slamming through the building, causing an earthquake that knocked every book and file from the shelves. The ogres were escorting everyone to the threat shelters and the SDF was preparing to enter the room where the disturbance had occurred.

Koenma paced back and forth nervously. That was the room where Riley was sleeping. If something happened to her…He didn't want to think about what would happen to the three worlds if she died.

"Koenma, sir! There's a barrier around the room. We can't break through!" The captain of the Spirit Defense Force panted, wiping sweat from his brow. He was nervous. The last time he'd felt energy that had so disturbed him was when Yusuke had awoken as a demon.

"What do you mean you can't break through?" the pint-sized ruler shouted at the top of his lungs. "You're the Spirit Defense Force! There is no such thing as a barrier you can't get through!"

"That's what we thought, sir," the captain said pensively, "up until now."

"Oh, this is bad," Koenma groaned.

It was certainly not good.

Present day

Kouryuu blinked at his reflection, smoothed his hair, and stepped back, picking up the jacket he knew his mother would forget. She did that a lot nowadays. She never had been the same after Mizu(3) had died.

Of all of his sisters, Mizu had been the most gentle, the fairest of them all. His mother had favored her, but they hadn't minded. They all adored Mizu. Perhaps it was because, no matter how much they spoiled her, she never became spoiled herself. She had been a strong and competent warrior.

She shouldn't have died.

It wasn't that she'd let her guard down or that she'd been out classed. It had been a mistake. They were using a new battle tactic. Mages penned enemy soldiers in with a strong barrier and a dragon dropped boulders on the trapped enemy. The poor souls trapped below had no hope of escape. Mizu had gotten caught with the filthy rotten pigs. She had been crushed along with them.

Mizu's death had nearly destroyed the foundations of his family. The graceful second daughter of the Kanashimu(4) family had been so special to each of her siblings in her own way. She was beautiful and clever and…and...God dammit why had she had to die?

Kouryuu snapped out of his thought as he realized he was trembling, his fist clenched in the soft coat. He took a breath and calmed himself, loosening his grip on the fabric before he continued. Ice formed around his heart as he thought of the man who had caused his sister's destruction.

They had never forgiven Koenma. The general at least had had the decency to apologize. More than apologize, the general had begged for their forgiveness on hands and knees.

Koenma though, he had just sent a letter of condolence. As if that would ever be enough. The general might have decided on the strategies, but it would always be Koenma who would carry the blame. He'd drafted Mizu—peaceful, pacifist Mizu, who honed her skills only for entertainment and as a precaution against a day when she might need them. If it weren't for him, the war would never have happened.

In the end, they not only lost their most beloved child, but also the one person who they'd had faith in. In the end, the general had died to protect Kouryuu's family. In the end, the general had been sacrificed to save millions. And in the end, the only consolation they'd gotten was that after the war the general had been buried right alongside Mizu.

Kouryuu and his sisters waited in the grand entrance to their apartments. The once bright tapestries hung faded and dusty; the marble floors and wooden furniture were dull with neglect. The silver pieces in that hall were tarnished with disuse, and no light entered that hall save for the shinings from a single window that Anrui sometimes sat at, gazing outward on the gardens.

He looked over to the two beautiful strangers next to him. They both stood ramrod straight, eyes fixed directly ahead. Reisui(5), his eldest sister, stood closest. Her expression, once calm and gracious, was now cold and distant. Eben's(6)face seemed permanently frozen in an angry glare. Her temper had never been tamed. With Mizu's calming influence gone, it had only gotten worse. He tried to see his sisters in these people, to see the once smiling faces, but he couldn't.

He sighed and followed their gaze, focusing on the doors at the end of the hall as shuffling footsteps echoed behind it. One of the huge oak doors creaked open as Anrui entered from her chambers. The once proud, beautiful woman stood hunched, eyes downcast, as though the world had broken her down until she was beyond recognition.

"Your coat, Mother," Kouryuu said in a strained whisper, not looking at her as he stepped forward and placed it around her shoulders. It pained him to see her like this, wilted and weak. She mumbled something that he interpreted as "Oh, thanks Shaks."

He pursed his lips. That nickname was one of the bad habits he'd never been able to break in her. Riley had called him that when he'd known her, and Anrui had never been able to give the nickname up.

They left through a side door that led out to Mizu's rose garden. The once carefully tended flowers had run rampant in the centuries since their master's death. No one had been able to tame the flowers, and they now grew in thorny thickets, a silent mass of deadly beauty. Kouryuu monitored his mother's footsteps for any sign of a tremble, but there was nothing. Maybe she _was _getting better after all this time. He did not believe that in his heart of hearts, but it never hurt to hope. He didn't believe that either, but it was easier to pretend.

The cemetery was dark and cold. It was always cold, always misty. Anrui caused it to be so; her grief blocked out the sun to this necropolis. They approached the grave with centuries' worth of grace and silence. Anrui looked up.

"Hey, Yusuke." Her lips twitched in a parody of a smile and her hand raised in a halfhearted wave.

"Hey," he said back quietly, not lifting his head.

As Shakespeare once wrote, "All are punishèd."

* * *

DIMS: Da da dum! Now, the complex web of connections that I have created is beginning to unfold. I'm doing my best to make it clear, so let me know if something is confusing. Not vague, I know what is vague and it is that way on purpose, but if something is really actively confusing you, please let me know and I'll try to explain.

I AM SORRY! I seem to have this six month writing cycle that is really bizarre and I will try to break I promise. I have some ideas for the next chapter. I will hopefully start writing _something_ within the week. I just need to push myself.

As for why this chapter is more than three months late, my excuses:

A)The apparently mandatory first draft stage. My first draft was crap

B) Writing the second draft. Wasn't actually terribly difficult, but it took a while to get inspiration

C)ZENA TOOK A LONG TIME TO EVEN ACCEPT MY DRAFT NOT TO MENTION EDIT IT! She was very busy. Don't blame her too much, it's mostly my fault. ^.^

D)I WAS LAZY! And I had to add a lot of completely new sections of writing to this piece. I added nearly a page in detail writing, not including these notes.

Now, for my translations and explanation notes.

1. Shakaku means angel of fire in Japanese

2. Children of Night are my own personal creation. You are not licensed to take them. They are mine and mine alone and came along as a completely random thing I added. Mine!

3. Mizu means water, simple as that. (Japanese)

4. Kanashimu means to be sad in Japanese

5. Reisui means cold water in Japanese

6. Eben means stone in Hebrew.

That's all. I hope you enjoyed this chapter

Love

DIMS!

Reviews appreciated? I don't care if it's just a spelling error. Pleeeeaaaase! I'M BEGGING YOU! (Is dragged off to mental hospital) Ooh, more time to write! Haha


	5. Dinner

AN: After nearly a year, this is finally posted. It's a bit short, but I really just felt like posting something, and I didn't want to bother my beta for advice.

I just realized, that in all the next gen fics that I've read in which both Yusuke and Hiei have kids, Yusuke has a son as the protagonist and Hiei has a daughter. I kind of wish I'd switched the genders. That would have been kind of cool….Maybe I'll do some extensive retconning….or not. Too much work. Anyway, thanks for reading! Also, I apologize for the obvious deterioration in my writing skills. I am seriously out of practice. By the way, Kurama's really hard to write while getting the information I want out there through his dialogue. He's probably a little OOC because I'm lazy.

WARNINGS: Ooh, this is the first time I've had to write one of these. Anyway, this chapter contains a one word reference to shounen ai that you can ignore if you change the word "boyfriend" for "girlfriend". I only included it to really characterize the Demon World of "today". And because I've been reading a lot of shounen ai manga lately.

Thank you very much. Please, please enjoy this chapter. (bow)

* * *

**Chapter 5: Dinner**

**"Swallow the sun, erase the sky**

**An invitation has been declined**

**Where did you go? Where did you go?"**

**~Whereabouts Unknown, Rise Against**

Snow fell softly, almost dissolving into the smoky mists that surrounded the graves, the flakes dusting the stone markers like ash. Soft powder crunched beneath their feet in a slow, steady rhythm. A tree cast its dark shadow on the icy layer quickly forming over the softer snow.

Yusuke trudged back towards the palace, a small child in tow. The boy, however, looked more like a small man, his hair slicked back professionally, a fashionable yet masculine black coat enveloping his form. The snow contrasted sharply as it fell in his coal black hair, but he didn't bother to brush it off.

"You sure you want to stay for dinner? The kids'll be there, you know. They might ask questions."

The boy nodded, staring coldly at the air in front of him. "I'm hungry."

Yusuke raised an eyebrow.

"As much as I love my mother, I don't remember my last meal."

Yusuke glanced down at the boy, his stiff, solemn features molded into a mask of apathy; his eyes, though large, provided no window into the mind he knew was quickly turning, thinking of a thousand things at once, least of all the conversation he was now having. A snowflake landed on his pale nose, and for a moment, Yusuke forgot all he'd gone through with the child, all the horrible things they had seen and done together. For just a moment, he looked like a kid.

He turned his eyes back to the path ahead. "You like Italian, right?"

Kouryuu smirked. "Aye."

* * *

_His father was apparently paralyzed and he was about to get attacked by a girl who had moments before seemed as innocent as a kitten—_

—**Everybody was kung-fu fighting****! ****Those cats were fast as lightning****! ****In fact it was a little bit frightening****! ****But they fought with expert ti—**

I ducked my head sheepishly, my hair flipping into my eyes as I dug my battered cell phone out of my pocket. Kayani paused the video, frozen on a frame of Riley, energy blazing, about to attack our fathers.

"Yo," I said, not bothering to look at the caller ID. Whoever it was had about ten seconds to explain why he/she/it had called right then before I hung up and kept watching.

"Hey, Mamoru," my dad's voice drifted distantly through the phone. I let out a long-suffering sigh; Dad was probably talking and cooking at the same time, _again_. I hoped he wouldn't burn the kitchen down this time.

"Yeah, Dad?" I groaned, glaring at the patch of carpet in front of my shoes. If I concentrated, I could make out a blurry picture of my dad running frantically from me as I chased him with a giant hammer. Or maybe that was wishful thinking…

Either way, Dad interrupted my picture searching with: "It's time for dinner. Hurry up and get down here; we've got a guest and I expect you to be nice."

"'Kay, Dad." I drummed out a march on the table with my fingertips. Kayani's lips quirked in an amused smirk and I shot her a glare. Just because I've lived for several hundred years doesn't mean I can't act like a normal teenager ever once in a while, spoil sport.

"Tell Kayani she's welcome to some grub, as always. I feel bad for her, having to eat whatever her dad's 'cooked'" Dad snickered. Uncle Hiei likes his food…smoky

I muttered my goodbye and snapped the phone shut. Kayani had already begun packing up the box, neatly stacking the papers and sliding them into their respective spaces. I reluctantly ejected the tape from the VCR—really, why didn't spirit world just switch to DVD already?—and handed it to Kayani.

"You mope like a kicked puppy," she said, observing my brooding face with a chuckle. "We'll be back tomorrow. It's not as though the library is going to self-destruct between now and then."

I quickly rapped my knuckles against the wooden surface of the table and glared at her balefully—she just loves to tempt Fate—before picking up the box.

"Come on," Kayani tugged at my elbow, "your dad'll be pissed if the food gets cold."

I stopped short, shuddering at the memory of the last time I was late to dinner. That was not something I wanted to repeat. "Alright, let's get moving!" I said with sarcastic enthusiasm fueled by a sense of impending doom and set the pace at a brisk trot.

I gingerly set the box just within the hidden doorway and closed the cunningly designed bit of wall, Kayani's foot tapping a staccato rhythm of impatience on the tile.

I rolled my eyes—I was the immature one?—but led the way to where the shelves began, presenting the first great trial of many to come: escaping the library.

* * *

Shelves towered above us, dusty volumes untouched for centuries giving the air a musty odor. The dim lights from high above cast no shadows, yet the maze seemed to get darker and darker as we progressed beneath the watchful eyes of millions of years' worth of words. Though we knew there to be many others in the library, it was silent but for the squeaking of our shoes.

"We're lost," my ever so cheery companion said after the first five minutes.

"You don't have to tell me," I ground out. Every minute we spent, lost among the shelves, the food was getting colder and colder, sitting uneaten at the dining room table with my father fuming, waiting at the front door, ready to kill.

Another five minutes passed.

"We're lost."

"I heard you the first time, oh Princess Obvious, lady of omniscience. Why don't you do something about it and use your Jagan to find a way out of here?"

She shifted uncomfortably, averting her eyes and I immediately looked down at my shoes, ashamed. Kayani might enjoy the suffering of others, but she wouldn't hold back information in a situation this serious.

"I tried," she muttered, rubbing at a scuff on the floor absently with her shoe. "I'm getting some interference from somewhere. One of the books probably has a ward on it or something."

"Okay, okay, what can we do?" I muttered to myself, craning my neck to see if I could navigate my way out of this using the mural on the ceiling, but I didn't remember which sector the door was under. Right now we were under the Children of the Night, the pale faces staring down at us doing little to bolster my confidence. "Maybe we could try climbing the shelves…? No, they're way too high…" I was about to suggest that we went back and took the long way around, following the walls of the mostly circular room until we came out at the front again when the hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood up and a chill ran down my spine. My eyes were drawn like magnets to the corner of the nearest bookcase. My heart pounded in my ears and I swallowed.

And then…

_All I could see of her was her toes poking out from beneath a tattered pair of jeans. Her dark brown hair curtained down to her ankles, covering her face, but a pair of brown eyes glittered through the sheer shield…_

Botan rounded the corner, dressed in the casual jeans and white T-shirt she wore when she was off duty. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and the tension in the air seemed to break. The flash of an image nagged at my mind like a half forgotten dream of déjà vu, but I pushed it aside, thinking it was probably strong psychic residue from one of the books. Not having much real psychic power to speak of, bar some telekinesis and some spiritual awareness, I've never really needed to keep strong shields around my mind to keep out that sort of thing.

"Well hello, Mamoru, Kayani. What are you two doing here?" Botan asked, smiling broadly.

"Trying to get out," Kayani answered smartly. It seemed that the antagonistic relationship with the father hand been passed down to the daughter, and it usually caused Botan the same ire but today she didn't seem to notice, instead giggling, "Let me guess, you're lost! Lucky for you, you've run into the best guide this side of the River Styx." She summoned her oar. "Hop on!"

I cautiously mounted the uncomfortable wooden flying device and was promptly almost dislodged as Botan took off. It must have just been the rush of wind in my ears, but in the moment between beginning to fall and frantically grasping the tail end of the oar, I thought I heard a pair of bare feet pattering away. By the time it registered, I was too busy holding on for dear life to notice or care.

"Thanks, Botan" I mumbled, sliding dizzily off the oar. I love the girl, I really do, but she just goes too dang fast on that thing.

"No problem!" she called over her shoulder, halfway down the hall already. I checked my watch. It had only been about twenty minutes since Dad had called. Subtract three, carry the five, and...I figured that food would probably be on the table in just under five minutes. Meaning: we were not late.

I opened the door, calling out to my dad to let him know we were home. The gray of the carpet, the stripes on the couch, the weary paperbacks on the shelves, all seemed glorious and wonderful to me, all because I was still alive to appreciate them.

Dad popped his head in from the dining room. "Great timing, you two. Just finished setting the table. Come in and meet our guest."

I practically skipped into the dining room and quickly slammed into a nonexistent, invisible wall as I laid eyes on our guest.

"Mamoru, Kayani, this is Kouryuu. Kouryuu, meet Mamoru and Kayani."

It was purple-eye-kid, the one I'd seen at the library. The one who'd been in my dream.

He looked up at us solemnly, but with a spark of interest and slowly he smiled. "Hi," he said, kicking his legs back and forth under the table. His voice was deeper than it should be, but he spoke in the shy tones of a young boy. Still, it was obvious that for all his small size, this was no child. On the other hand, he wasn't an average adult. Spirits _are_ like that sometimes. Just look at Koenma or Botan even. When you didn't have to worry as much about dying, in certain ways you never grew up.

Still, a certain part of my mind, one which I will never, ever publically admit to existing, was screaming, "He. Is. So. Cute. He looks like a freaking baby panda!" While I would admit that the pale skin combined with dark hair, eyes, and clothes _did_ resemble a panda, it also resembled other, less savory things….like raccoons!

Kayani snorted and rolled her eyes quietly.

_Don't fight it. Just go with pandas._

I looked at her sidelong, blood rushing to my cheeks. Of all the times to forget that my best friend is a mind reader, this had to be one of the worst.

_I hate you._

Her highness did not deign to reply.

"So, now that you all know each other, let's eat!" Dad ushered us excitedly to our seats, said the usual thanks for the meal, and dug unceremoniously into the Italian cuisine he had so carefully prepared. My dad, contrary to his popular persona, loves cooking. Mom taught him how a long time ago, probably before I was born. I think he does it now because it keeps her memory close. Sometimes, he even makes these really horrid casseroles just because they were her recipe.

Still, if there is one thing my dad loves more than cooking, it's eating. His full mouth meant Kayani and I had to hold up most of the conversation, a task which quickly proved both awkward and difficult by Kouryuu's disinclination to speak. He, instead, began to methodically disembowel a garlic roll, mining the best of the soft bits from the crunchy exterior crust.

"So," Dad finally asked between bites, "What did you kids do today?"

Kayani and I shared a glance across the small, round table.

"Err, we…"

"We went to the library," she quickly filled in, glaring at my verbal clumsiness. I glared right back, and we'd probably have started arguing in our heads when Kouryuu's voice unexpectedly broke the silence.

"That's where I saw you, the library." He was staring deliberately down at his plate of fettuccine, not ceasing his systematic attack on the food in front of him, not even glancing up. "You were reading about the war. And lightning demons."

He glanced up at me and caught my eyes with his. I was transfixed like a bird before a snake.

"That's right," I said unnecessarily. He knew what he knew and needed no confirmation. A cool confidence filled his eyes and voice as he spoke, belying his childlike demeanor.

And then I was free. He went back to his pasta, mumbling something like, "Good for you," in between mouthfuls.

Silence spread throughout the room for a while, which seemed to please the two older people at the table who were totally absorbed in the admittedly delicious food before them. Kayani and I, not wanting to break the quiet, conversed quietly telepathically. I may not be a strong psychic, but Kayani can both read and project thoughts, so clandestine conversations are not terribly difficult.

_This kid said he'd met you before. What do you know about him?_ Kayani asked, twirling pasta onto her fork.

_My dad said he was a message runner during the War, his mom was an advisor to the General and he lost a sister. That's all I know. _

_So he's older than us, then? _

"I was an old man when you were born."

We slowly turned to stare, mouths agape.

He was slowly crunching the last leaves of his salad, tracing patterns in the dressing with a chopstick. Where he got the chopstick, I don't really know, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time.

_Just how old is he?_ I wondered just as Kayani thought, _How did he do that?_

"Seventeen-hundred and five, and you think rather loudly, you know." He smirked at his food, kicking his legs beneath the table.

"Kouryuu, don't scare them," my dad put in, standing up to clear his place. "They're the closest you're gonna get to friends this side of the century."

Kouryuu raised his gaze to my father, then looked back to us. "I apologize," he said, though no particular remorse seemed to show on his face. Rather, he seemed to be analyzing us, his glance cool and calculating. Still, I remembered what Dad had said about him,_ "__I doubt he even remembers how to hold a civilized conversation," _and smiled. "No harm done," I said cheerfully, trying to draw him out. He might be close to two thousand years old, but that didn't mean his social skills couldn't improve. Mom always told me to help those I could, and eventually someone would help me when I needed it most.

Kouryuu stood to clear his plate—completely clean, though he'd had seconds—and as he passed, I thought I heard him whisper, "That's charitable of you, Urameshi." But when I turned to look he was already in the kitchen.

Not long after, he took his leave, bowing politely but with far away eyes and letting himself out of the apartments.

My dad turned to us from where he was washing the dishes. "Thanks kids. He doesn't really get out much anymore. I think that's the most he's probably talked in months."

"It wasn't a problem, Uncle," Kayani said, glancing at me with a questioning expression as we both wondered just who this guy really was.

"Good." He went back to the dishes. "He might be coming around more often, might want to spend time with you two. He thought you were both, in his words, 'interesting,' which is one of the highest compliments I've ever heard him give, by the way."

"Ah," I said, and a slightly awkward pause followed before Kayani said, "Well, I think it's time I headed home."

"Bye Kayani. Say hi to your dad for me."

"Alright, Uncle Yusuke."

I walked Kayani back to the apartments she shared with her father, where she dutifully relayed Dad's message, at which time I got a grunt which I was to convey to my father, which I did, and then went to bed.

Sleep, however, evaded me. I couldn't stop thinking. Throughout everything that had happened today, my mind had been in a sort of haze, to the point that I couldn't really stop to think about what was going on around me. Now, though, alone in a more or less silent room, everything went rushing through my mind at dizzying speeds. First, my dream, which was obviously a scene from the war, only I hadn't even been a twinkle in my mother's eye when the war was fought, so there's no way I could have a memory of it. Yet my dad seemed to confirm it, first this morning when he told me Kouryuu was a message runner, like in my dream, and then when he was here for dinner, connecting the name to the face irrefutably.

Then there was the matter of what Kayani had discovered during her mental retreat. Someone had come out of the hidden apartments in spirit world with some serious mental clout so that even Kayani couldn't get into their head. Then there was the psychic interference in the library, and Kouryuu had been able to break through Kayani's barriers to hear our conversation during dinner. I'd never known anyone that powerful except her father.

Maybe Kouryuu _was_ the one who lived in the restricted section who had foiled Kayani's attempts? I had seen him at the library the day before she had woken up, and he obviously had the psychic power well beyond Kayani's. That didn't explain the interference in the library, though, since he was at the apartment with Dad. Maybe it was one of the books, like Kayani thought?

Last but not least, the tapes. That was the biggest puzzle of all. Why was Spirit World interested in a human girl from a dimension that didn't even have spirit energy, so much so that she almost died when she was brought here? And who was that other girl that was taken with Riley? Why were there no files on her in the boxes? Why was she taken? Why did Riley attack my dad? And…what happened to her? My dad is obviously alive, so…

What happened?

Then there was still the mystery of the lightning demon section that had been ripped out of that book. If our leader in the Great War had been a lightning demon, why did someone hate them enough to rip them out of that book? Maybe because they're supposedly so powerful? I say supposedly because they are so rare, I don't know anyone who's ever met a lightning demon, except my father and the other war veterans, of course. Maybe someone wants to prevent people from finding out about lightning demons. But why? Why?

The questions spiraled in my head until I fell into dreamless sleep.

* * *

Yusuke sat drinking decaf in the living room long after Mamoru had gone to bed, talking on the vidcom to Kurama, who had just returned to Demon World after the yearly gathering.

"You know, Kouryuu came to dinner with us today. And he actually talked. He made an effort to listen in on the kids, even."

Kurama raised an eyebrow. "Really? I didn't think she'd loosened her grip on him that much. She used to keep him with her everywhere she went."

"She's been like that for a while," Yusuke said, sipping his coffee. "I don't think she really notices him anymore, or anyone else, really. The girls still won't leave her apartments, though."

"It will be good if he interacts with Mamoru and Kayani. Perhaps it could even encourage her to come back to the world again. She always liked children," Kurama suggested. "At any rate, he'll make sure they don't get into any trouble. We know she cares about those two."

"Yeah, and 'anyone she cares about I'll give my life to protect,' just like he always used to say."

"Right."

There was a short pause.

"So how's your kid doing? You've never brought him up here. What's his name again, Kaede?"

"That's right. He's doing well, I suppose. He's living like most young demons do, fighting, stealing, sometimes coming home. I think he has a boyfriend, but he doesn't talk to me much." Kurama made a face and Yusuke roared with laughter.

"Growing up quick, then."

"You could say that. He had to, though, living here."

Another short pause.

"You know, sometimes I wonder if we should have moved to Demon World after Keiko died. It's not like there are any spirits Mamoru's age here, so he hasn't really had any friends except for Kayani."

"He's safer in Spirit World and he'll have a choice of which world he wants to live when he's old enough to decide. Speaking of which, how old are they, now?"

"It's been…two hundred and three years now? Wow, he's almost an adult by demon world standards, isn't he?"

"He's past that. Most demons are on their own by one hundred and eighty, mated by your boy's age." It was Kurama's turn to chuckle as Yusuke's jaw dropped. "But with his human blood, and being in Spirit World, those kids are probably aging slower that most demons. They still look fifteen, if those pictures you showed yesterday were recent."

"I took them on New Year's day."

"They still have a while to go, especially if they haven't hit the rebellious stage yet." A door slammed off screen.

"_Hey, Dad, I'm back," _filtered distantly through the speakers.

Kurama sighed, and called back, "Welcome home!"

"Talk to you later, man!" Yusuke said, snickering.

Kurama glared as he stood and leaned over to shut off the vidcom. The last thing Yusuke saw was a tall, blond young man with fox ears and tail coming through the door behind his father before the screen went dark.

Yusuke sighed, drank the last of his coffee and went to bed.

* * *

Happy New Year, everybody! Please enjoy this chapter! Ilandere, please leave a detailed edit/review at your convenience (don't forget!).

Hopefully I will have the next chapter up within three months. That is my goal. At the same time, however, I am working on a very heavy academic and artistic workload, and also writing a play. Let me know what you think is going to happen next (because I don't actually know for sure, ha).

See you next year, everybody!

Love, DIMS.

P.S. Would any of you be bothered with Shounen-ai as a background/midground (the main romance is between characters already introduced but...^.^) element of the story? Because Kaede is probably going to be added to the ensemble, and I may add in a boyfriend as a main character, but I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, so let me know if you have any particular opinion. ^.^


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